“You mean to tell me, then,” he said, “that I have made you cease to care?”
She tried to soften the verdict. “You seemed to me not to care very much yourself. You left me for a year together—”
“Once, my dear. I left you for one year.”
“One whole year, you know,” she replied, “and for other times too.”
“I never ceased to love you,” he vowed. “You must be aware how much I depended upon you. You were always with me.”
She could have laughed at him. “I don't pretend to the same state of mind. During those absences of yours I learned to be happy alone—and I was happy, too.”
This seemed horrible to him. “I could not have believed it of you,” he said, aghast. “You must have changed indeed.”
“I have changed,” she owned. He started to his knees and clasped her.
“Beloved, I can change you again—I am the man who had your heart. I must do it—it's my right as well as my duty. Trust me again, my own; give me your dear hand again—and you shall see. If you are changed for the worse, I am changed for the better. You have redeemed me. What is it they say in the Bible? By your stripes I am healed. Yes, yes—that's precisely it. Kiss me, my own girl; kiss me.” His eyes implored: she stooped her sad head that he might kiss her. He strained upwards and held her until she broke away with a sob. “Oh, leave me, leave me for a little while,” she prayed him brokenly. “I can't talk any more now; I assure you I can't.”
He begged her pardon for his vehemence. “I'm pretty bad myself, you know. This kind of thing plays the deuce with a man's heart.”